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T.J. Dillashaw and Stephen Thompson fight in different weight classes in the UFC and chances are they will never face each other inside the octagon.
However, T.J. Dillashaw still managed to put 'Wonderboy' through a desk using a modified version of WWE legend Kurt Angle's Angle Slam. However, it was not because of any out-of-octagon rivalry as one might think.
T.J. Dillashaw and Stephen Thompson together starred in a 2018 commercial for leading clothing brand, Van Heusen. The American apparel company partnered up with the UFC for their 'Flex Collection', which was specifically designed for maximum freedom of movement while still donning a formal look.
The advertisement started with the two fighters sitting opposite each other at a table, where Dillashaw visibly gets more and more furious at Thompson for noisily slurping soft drinks through a straw.
Getting impatient, the two start brawling in their office suits and an octagon fence shows up around them. The advertisement tries to show how easy it is to move in the 'Flex Collection' shirts and trousers.
The brawl ends with T.J. Dillashaw slamming Stephen Thompson through the table. Here is a slow-motion, behind-the-scenes version of this particular shot.
The move that T.J. Dillashaw uses on Stephen Thompson is a slightly modified version of the Angle Slam popularized by former Olympic gold medalist and WWE superstar Kurt Angle.
The move was initially called the Olympic Slam given his status as an Olympian. However, it later had to be changed to the Angle Slam because the Olympic committee threatened to sue on the basis of copyright issues:
"That was the Olympic committee that was threatening to sue us if we used the word Olympic cause they owned that word so I had to change the Olympic Slam to the Angle Slam," Kurt Angle himself said on an episode of The Kurt Angle Show.
Here's a video of Kurt Angle delivering an 'Angle Slam' to 'The Viper' Randy Orton on a March 2019 episode of WWE SmackDown.
Watch the full commercial featuring T.J. Dillashaw and Stephen Thompson below:
Dillashaw and Thompson shot a separate behind-the-scenes clip as well, where they talked about what it was like to feature in the commercial.
Van Heusen started a partnership with the promotion at UFC 227: T.J. Dillashaw vs. Cody Garbrandt
Per Adweek, Van Heusen became the first men's clothing company to team up with the UFC and the partnership became official on August 4 at UFC 227. At the show, T.J. Dillashaw defended his bantamweight title against Cody Garbrandt in the main event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles:
"We didn’t plan it this way but T.J. will be in a title fight for a pay per view event. As part of the sponsorship with UFC, we wanted to be in the space, we wanted to be endemic and inside the space," said Mike Kelly, the CMO of PVH Heritage Marketing, the parent company of Van Heusen.
The Van Heusen logo appeared on the canvas and was present in the digital and social components of the event.
